Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Sunday afternoon that he is suspending his 2024 presidential bid, just a few days short of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation GOP primary.
In a pre-recorded video posted on X, DeSantis announced the news and endorsed former President Donald Trump while throwing another punch in former Ambassador Nikki Haley’s direction.
“Nobody worked harder and we left it all out on the field,” DeSantis said of his presidential campaign. “I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory,” he admitted. “Accordingly, today I am suspending my campaign.”
After coming in second place in the Iowa GOP caucuses earlier in January, DeSantis said it’s now “clear” to him “that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance. They watched his presidency get stymied by relentless resistance and they see Democrats using lawfare to this day to attack him,” DeSantis emphasized.
While DeSantis reiterated in his video that he’s had “disagreements” with Trump “such as on the coronavirus pandemic and his elevation of Anthony Fauci,” he said that “Trump is superior to the current incumbent Joe Biden. That is clear.”
Noting that he “signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee,” DeSantis said he “will honor that pledge” and Trump has the Florida governor’s endorsement “because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear — a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”
“The days of putting Americans last, of kowtowing to large corporations, of caving to woke ideology are over,” DeSantis added.
Thanking his wife and their kids, DeSantis noted that “Casey has gone far above and beyond in her support for our campaign and for our cause” as “not only a great wife and mother” but also as “a great American who cares deeply about the future of the country that our kids will inherit.”
In a quote he attributed to Winston Churchill, DeSantis said that “success is not final, failure is not fatal — it is the courage to continue that counts,” and even though his “campaign has ended, the mission continues. Down here in Florida, we will continue to show the country how to lead,” he pledged.
